2015: THE FORMER THAMES TELEVISION STUDIOS AT TEDDINGTON, WEST LONDON.

It seems like the UK's film and television studios are closing thick and fast... falling victim to the housing boom that makes the land they're sitting on worth more than their income from being media production centres.

I took a walk down the river last year to take these pictures of the former Thames Television studios at Teddington just after they closed but just before the demolition work began.

The studios were originally built for film but were converted for TV use when ITV opened for business. They played host to Thames Television from 1969 until the company lost its ITV franchise in the early 1990s. Although the company continued as an independent producer,  it no longer needed these riverside facilities and they became an independent business. They were later purchased by Pinewood... and then, thanks to their prime position, sold for redevelopment. 

Most Thames TV shows were made in these studios (and often utilised the surrounding area for handy locations) although they also had smaller studios, along with offices, near Great Portland Street tube station on central London's Euston Road (Capital Radio were their neighbours and ITV Publications not far away on Tottenham Court Road). Weirdly, I sat exams in those former Thames offices because my university (pressed for space during extensive refurbishment works) hired them as temporary exam "halls" after Thames moved out. They were demolished shortly thereafter. My university library was located opposite the former ITN House, vacant at the time but now (you guessed it) flats. 

For a look inside Teddington in the late 1990s, seek out the episode 'Hostage' from CI5: THE NEW PROFESSIONALS. The long overlooked revival of the LWT original used Teddington as a production base and, to save money, one episode revolves around a hostage situation that just happens to take place at a TV studio. Interiors and exteriors are seen throughout. 

2015: UPCOMING NEW LAUNCHES

STARLOGGED doesn't normally do "new media" but there's a plethora of new print launches coming over the next couple of months so this seemed like a good opportunity to romp through the highlights:

DC COMICS GRAPHIC NOVEL COLLECTION
WHERE: UK newsagents and comic stores
WHEN: August/ September
WHO FROM: Eaglemoss

The success of the two (!) ongoing hardback collections of Marvel strips (the 'black' volumes dedicated to collecting dedicated story arcs and the 'red' volumes dedicated to a specific character) made a DC equivalent inevitable.  Eaglemoss previewed this new fortnightly at the London Film and Comic Con this month and had the first issue (priced to go at £2.99) on sale.  Issues 1-2 reprint BATMAN: HUSH with 3 (SUPERMAN: LAST SON OF KRYPTON), 4 (JUSTICE LEAGUE: TOWER OF BABEL), 5 (SUPERMAN/ BATMAN: PUBLIC ENEMIES) and 6 (BATMAN AND SON) already confirmed.

The lack of more vintage material from the archives is disappointing and it's unclear whether  any is scheduled for later editions.

The Marvel volumes, meanwhile, continue apace and offer (certainly in comparison to Marvel's own massively overpriced trade paperbacks) excellent value.

Could a DC FACT FILES, in the tradition of the Marvel Fact Files series (also published by Eaglemoss), also be in the offing for the future?

DOCTOR WHO: THE COMPLETE HISTORY
WHERE: UK newsagents and comic stores
WHEN: SEPTEMBER
WHO FROM: Hachette/ Panini

Panini is sitting on a vast repository of Doctor Who lore so it makes sense to find an outlet for all that accumulated material and knowledge.  This new fortnightly partwork is a series of hardback books each dedicated to covering the making of (it seems) 2-4 TV adventures per book.  Issue 1 is punter-pleasing look at four Tennant adventures, 2 looks at back to Pertwee, 3 jumps to the present and 4 returns to the show's origins.

Hachette also tested a series of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER hardback graphic novels (reprinting the US Dark Horse strips) in certain areas earlier this year (I stumbled across the second volume in Colchester, Essex) but there's no mention of it currently on their website so, presumably, the series has been dropped whilst they analyze its chances of a successful national roll out.

The JUDGE DREDD fortnightly hardbacks continue apace.

It would be great if Hatchette's relationship with Marvel extended to a similar ongoing run of STAR WARS strip hardbacks, plundering the vast inventory of Marvel and Dark Horse material. 

COMIC BOOK HEROES
WHERE: UK newsagents and comic stores
WHEN: October
WHO FROM: Future.

This SFX spin-off was cancelled a while back which, considering the continuing boom in comic book movies (the film magazines seem to declare every other issue a "comic book movie special), seemed a little dumb.  Sure enough, it will apparently return on a quarterly schedule around October time.

THE X-FILES: THE OFFICIAL COLLECTION
WHERE: Comic stores (and, possibly, UK newsagents)
WHEN: December
WHO FROM: Titan Magazines.

Details about this one are scant but it appears to be a three-issue run (each 176 pages) of material originally published in Titan's long-defunct X-Files Magazine.  How much, if any, will be based on the impending revival is unclear.

HEROES REBORN MAGAZINE
WHERE: Comic stores
WHEN: September
WHO FROM: Titan Magazines

Titan, formally publishers of The Official Heroes Magazine, are due to renew their acquaintance with the once-popular TV show to coincide with the NBC revival (great trailer, btw).  This 100-page issue looks like a one-shot with an option for more (ala Grimm, Sleepy Hollow, Once Upon A Time and other Titan tie-ins) if the show turns out to be a hit.

Titan also have the comic book rights to the show and plan to launch the five-issue HEROES VENGEANCE in October.

Titan continue to publish their ongoing STAR TREK and STAR WARS INSIDER official magazines and both, hopefully, will see their now traditional bookazine "best of" compilations at the end of the year.  I also wouldn't be surprised (unless someone else has bagged the rights) to see Titan publish the official magazine tie-in to The Force Awakens in December.  

DOCTOR WHO SPECIAL EDITION: THE MUSIC OF DOCTOR WHO
WHERE: WH Smith and Comic Stores
WHEN: August
WHO FROM: Panini

Doctor Who Magazine has another one of its bookazines in the works, this one dedicated to the show's memorable music.  Should be fascinating.

DOCTOR WHO: THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE 6 - DAVROS AND OTHER VILLAINS.
WHERE: WH Smith and Comic Stores
WHEN: October (probably)
WHO FROM: Panini

Doctor Who Magazine's total takeover of the shelves of WHS (has nobody told them the weather-worn retailer is scaling back the shelf space allocated to periodicals?) continues with yet another bookazine spin-off.

Future Magazines are also apparently planning a new CRIME SCENE quarterly (thanks Ed!) dedicated to Sherlock and the like.  Details online seem to be non-existent at the moment.

The first ART OF FILM bookazine, a spin-off from Future's IMAGINEFX magazine, is out now.  It's dedicated to art inspired by the Star Wars Saga and is well worth getting.  A second issue is apparently planned but there's no details of contents or publication date.

The hard-to-find (unless you pick up the often shoddy Quality Comics back issues of the 1980s/ 1990s) DAN DARE strips from 2000AD (long mired in rights hell) are due to be given the hardback treatment in November.  If only someone would reprint The Return of the Mekon from 1980s Eagle. 

2015: IPC (International Publishing Corporation) TRIVIA.

IPC (International Publishing Corporation) was formed by the merger of Fleetway Publications and Odhams (both of which had been formed by previous mergers and consolidation) in 1961.

IPC itself was created as a holding company for these diverse separate entities in 1963.  Despite their common ownership, they continued to operate as individual entities, often in direct competition with each other.  The business was amalgamated into six distinct divisions in 1968.

Although the Fleetway brand (named after Fleetway House in Farringdon Street: ironically prone to flooding from the underground Fleet River which ran under Fleet Street) was jettisoned from the periodicals business, it was retained as the brand name for IPC's annuals through to the 1980s. 

Kings Reach Tower was opened in the early 1970s to house IPC's various magazine and comics titles.  It replaced a sprawling portfolio of properties that had been acquired through various mergers and purchases.  IPC eventually moved out in 2007, making way for extensive redevelopment (left) which included adding a further 11 floors to the original 30 stories.  

IPC, at one time, simultaneous owned and published arch Fleet Street rivals THE DAILY MIRROR and THE SUN (formally the Daily Herald).  The notoriously loss-making (sizzling soar-away) Sun was sold to Rupert Murdoch in 1969 for £800,000. 

The circulation of the revitalized SUN, once considered an albatross, overtook the Daily Mirror in 1978. 

MIRROR GROUP (which also included the Sunday Mirror and Sunday People) remained under IPC's ownership until it was sold to Robert Maxwell in 1984 for £113 million. 

IPC's YOUTH GROUP was similarly sold to Maxwell in 1987.  It was renamed Fleetway and moved out of Kings Reach Tower.  It was merged with rival London Editions (owned by Egmont), creating Fleetway Editions, in 1991.  Following the publisher's death in November 1991, and the subsequent financial unraveling of his business empire, Egmont took full control of the business.  The Fleetway brand was eventually ditched entirely. 

MIRROR GROUP was headquartered and published in a building (completed in 1963) overlooking London's Holborn Circus.  The cavernous basement housed the paper's printing presses.  The building was eleven stories above ground and included a helicopter pad on the roof.  The building was vacated in 1994 and subsequently demolished and replaced by the current headquarters of Sainsburys. 

2015: ITV's KENT HOUSE and KINGS REACH TOWER

From 2015: Kent House and the redeveloped Kings Reach Tower.

I was over on London's South Bank yesterday and took the chance to snap this shot of a new addition to the skyline: the extensively refurbished (I would argue: basically rebuilt) Kings Reach Tower, former hope of IPC.

It's now known as the South Bank Tower and is being redeveloped for mixed use as retail, office and residential (imagine the view!) use. 

KRT was built in the early 1970s to house IPC's sprawling print empire (although printing itself was handled elsewhere) and allowed the publisher to concentrate their previously sprawling estate (built up by various acquisitions) onto one site.  The original tower was thirty stories, the replacement will boast forty-one.  

The Stamford Street icon will have been familiar to anyone who read 2000AD and SCREAM during the Star Age because it managed to house both Tharg's Command Centre (the whole building was basically a giant rocket... which may explain the need for extensive modifications now) and Ghastly McNasty's dungeon.  

Tharg was forced to decamp to less salubrious accommodation in the late Eighties when IPC management, realizing that comics were no longer going to be a mainstream cash cow and were evolving into a niche product unworthy of the conglomerate's attentions, flogged everything still in print to Robert (Money's no object) Maxwell in 1987.  The cast adrift Youth Group revived the Fleetway brand (originally created by Mirror Group when they acquired Amalgamated Press, based in Farringdon Street's Fleetway House, in 1959.  The brand was formally phased out, in favor of IPC, in 1968 although it continued to appear on the publisher's annuals for decades to come.  

IPC was sold to Time Inc (part of the huge Time Warner media mammoth notorious for its disastrous purchase of AOL in 2000) in 2001.  The rapidly contracting IPC decamped from the tower in 2007.  The IPC name was dropped, in favor of Time Inc UK, in September 2014.  

The white building to the left will be instantly recognizable to any Star Age Warrior who lived in London and watched TV at the weekends.  The 24-storey Kent House, opened in 1972, was built to house London Weekend Television, the ITV franchise holder that went on-air in 1968.  The iconic building survived the mergers and contractions (and the competitive franchise round which swept away fellow London operator Thames in the Nineties) and eventually (probably because they like the view) became the corporate HQ for ITV.  Most of the broadcaster's other regional centres closed as the business was streamlined.  

The tower has studios at the base and offices above (it's a sign of ITV's former complexity that a whole tower was required to house the operations of a broadcaster that only operated from Friday evenings to Sunday night... although programme making, of course, happened all week) but rumors persist that ITV plans to vacate the offices and make a killing by selling them for (you guessed it) residential use.  LWT's original bosses were smart enough (and well aware of the fragile here-today, gone-tomorrow awarding of ITV franchises at the whim of the ITA and latterly IBA) to design the building to make subsequent conversion possible.  Future proofing. 

2015: GLEN A. LARSON BIRTHDAY FILM (BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, GALACTICA 1980 and KNIGHT RIDER)

Legendary Uber-Producer Glen A. Larson would have been celebrating his 78th birthday a few days ago.  Unfortunately he died last November.  I posted my own tribute (77 FACTOIDS) at the time (see it here).

NBC CLASSICS have put together their own birthday tribute: a clever compilation of clips from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, GALACTICA 1980 and KNIGHT RIDER.  

I have to say, I cringed at the choppy sound editing on this (writing as someone who does this kind of thing for a living) but, to cut the editor some slack, they would have been working from fully-mixed Masters and struggling with the episode's original music-and-all sound mix.

That said, it's still a nice tribute and even nicer that anyone actually cared about TV heritage enough to notice Larson's birthday.